The purpose of Project Management is to coordinate the software engineering and management activities of the project's development process.
Project Management involves developing the project's development process and managing the project using this process. The project's development process is tailored to the specific characteristics of the project.
The software development plan is based on the project's defined software process and describes how the activities of the project's defined software process will be implemented and managed. The management of the software project's size, effort, cost, schedule, staffing, and other resources is tied to the tasks of the project's development process.
These practices build on, and are in addition to, the practices of Project Planning and Project Tracking and Oversight. The emphasis of Project Management shifts to anticipating problems and acting to prevent or minimize the effects of these problems.
To define and document the project's development process.
To insure the project is planned and managed according to the project's development process.
Organizational Policy
The team is committed to following a disciplined approach to development. Part of this discipline is providing a model for how the global and individual tasks are to be completed and the standards under which tasks are guided. It is the project manager's task to develop this model, document it, and train the team on its ramifications.
The project's defined software process is developed by tailoring known processes to the project's needs.
This typically means that: 1. A software life cycle is:
2. The description of the project's development process is documented.
3. The description of the project's defined software process is managed and controlled.
The project's development plan, which describes the use of the project's development process, is developed and revised according to a documented procedure.
The software project is managed in accordance with the project's documented development process.
The project's documented process typically specifies that:
1. Provisions are made for gathering, analyzing, and reporting measurement data needed to manage the software project.
2. The activities for software estimating, planning, and tracking are tied to the key tasks and work products of the project's development process.
3. Readiness and completion criteria are established, documented, and used to authorize initiation and determine completion of key tasks.
4. Documented criteria are defined to indicate when to replan the software project.
5. Technical and management lessons learned are documented and stored in the organization's library of software process-related documentation.
6. Technical and management lessons learned from monitoring the activities of other projects in the organization are systematically reviewed and used to estimate, plan, track, and replan the software project.
7. The staffing plan addresses the software project's needs for individuals with special skills and application domain knowledge.
The critical dependencies and critical paths of the project's software schedule are managed according to a documented procedure.
This procedure typically specifies that:
1. Milestones, tasks, commitments, critical dependencies, staffing, costs, and reviews are allocated in the schedule consistent with the project's defined software process.
2. Critical dependencies are defined, negotiated, and reflected in the software schedule.
The project's software risks are identified, assessed, documented, and managed according to a documented procedure.
Measurements
Measurements are made and used to determine the effectiveness of the integrated software management activities.
Examples of measurements include:
The activities for managing the software project are reviewed with senior management on a periodic basis.
The activities for managing the software project are reviewed with the project manager on both a periodic and event-driven basis.
The software quality assurance group reviews and/or audits the activities and work products for managing the software project and reports the results.